Page:The Effects of Civilisation on the People in European States.djvu/24

2

a native of North America were to come to some European nation, he would probably, after having informed himself of the different states and conditions of the people in this society, be most struck with the great profusion and splendour of some among them, and the penury and obscurity of all the others; and, in this, it would appear to him, that this civilised people differed most from those of his own country, where the condition of all is the same. He would naturally, therefore, divide the people, whose situation he had so observed, into two orders, viz. the rich and the poor. We shall make the same division; and, as the different conditions of the people are among the greatest effects of civilisation, shall inquire into the situation of each of these orders separately.

We often hear of inquiries into the state of nations being made in legislative assemblies; but such inquiries are of a very confined nature. If made by a minister of state, nothing is understood further than the financial state of a kingdom, the supplies and expenditure: if by a secretary at War, the state of the army is the object of inquiry: